I'm sitting alone at the bar in Paddy O'Reilly's on a Saturday night, waiting for him to arrive and trying to pretend I'm not anxious.

This is not normal for me. The anxiety I mean. Bars are my natural habitat. I'm a hard working woman who travels too much. I need someplace where I can just relax and be me, so in every new city, I find a bar and make it my own.

My preference is for old-fashioned places with polished foot-rails, tall stools and a mirror behind the bar. I always sit at the bar itself, never in a booth. Booths make me feel trapped. A bar stool gives me freedom. It doesn't commit me to sitting next to anyone. I can check out the room in the mirror. And the stools are just the right height for showing off my legs.

I found Paddy's a couple of months ago, when my Zurich assignment started. Zurich's going through a 'hotel-chic' thing with bars: light-box walls, clean lines, subdued colours and ambient music. It's all too new and too self-consciously cool for me. Paddy's was a welcome relief. It has resisted going for the full "Top of the morning to you" Irish Theme Park thing and focused on serving good beer, great Guinness and an impressive choice of Irish whiskies.

Tonight I'm sipping Bushmills whiskey; trying to make it last while I wait. Waiting is also not usual for me. Most of the time I'm the best looking woman in whatever bar I'm in—I'm not bragging, just stating a fact—so when I want a man all I have to do is to make eye contact and he is by my side.

Yet here I am, waiting, perched on the same stool I used last week, on the evening that this obsession of mine started. I wasn't sipping whiskey that night. I was tossing it back and lining up the empty shot glasses in front of me.

I hadn't had a fuck in two weeks and hadn't had toe-curling, spine-stretching, groan-making, clit-throbbing sex in much longer. I was horny enough to be restless but stressed enough not to have the focus to do anything about it. I'd decided to drink until everything went away. In between shots I was using the mirror to scan the room for someone who could scratch my itch. My gaze slid over a couple of guys with potential but they didn't have what it took to hook my hunger, at least not that night.

I was ready to reach for another shot before scanning the room again, when my eyes were drawn to an ugly fat man with thinning hair. His nose was too large for his face. He had a gap between his front teeth that he could have pushed his tongue through. But the most noticeable thing about him was the wall-eye, so badly in need of surgical correction I wondered if it was real. It was painful to look at that eye and impossible to look away from it. He was dressed in a black polo shirt that seemed a size too small and black jeans that his belly hung over. Attribute it to boredom or alcohol or that rubber-necking instinct that makes us look at crashed cars at the side of the road, but I found myself staring at the man.

He was leaning against the wall, his half-empty pint of Guinness resting on his gut and seemed to be listening to the woman standing next to him. She was one of those tall Germanic-blondes with skinny arms and bony faces that Zurich is infested with. She looked too sophisticated for him. As I watched, she reached out her hand and touched him, letting her fingers run lightly through the coarse, dark hair that matted his naked forearm. It was a lover's touch. I was certain that these two had had sex.

Unbidden, an image flashed across my mind of him on his back, with Fraulein Longshanks straddling him, digging her nails into the hair on his beached-whale of a belly as she fucked and he watched.

It was the kind of image that should have repelled me or made me laugh contemptuously but instead, my nipples rose. Then I realised that the ugly fuckling was looking at me. At least one of his eyes seemed to be. Angry with myself, I dragged my gaze away from him and threw down two shots in quick succession.

Maybe if I'd been less intent on self-medicating with whiskey I'd have seen him come up behind me. As it was, the first thing I was aware of was the heat of him leaning up against my back. He spoke straight into my ear, close enough for me to feel his breath.

"It was the right one that was looking at you," he said, in a soft Irish accent that sounded the way Bailey's feels on the tongue: smooth with a hint of wickedness.

Despite the contrast between his voice and his looks, I had no doubts about who was behind me. I swivelled on my stool so that I was half facing him.

"I'm sorry?" I said in tone that was not at all apologetic and which should have discouraged conversation.

"Don't be sorry now. Most people can't work it out."

So much for discouragement. I took a sip of my whiskey and moved on to confrontation.

"I wasn't trying to work anything out."

"Yes you were. You wanted to know if the ugly guy standing in the corner was really staring at you, but, as his eyes point in different directions you couldn't be sure."

I blushed. I never blush when I'm sober so I'd definitely had too much to drink.

Ugly moved forward a little until he was positioned so that if I stood up I'd be pressed against him. I was annoyed rather than threatened. The whiskey had slowed my tongue and he spoke again before I could tell him to piss off.

"At first you were annoyed that an ugly animal of man would stare at you so openly."

He kept a smile on his face and his tone was pleasant. Anyone looking at us would think that we were friends having a quiet chat. But if they had looked into his one good eye, they'd have known what I knew: this large fat man was dangerous.

"Look." I said, getting ready to charm him if necessary.

"Oh you looked alright," he said, talking over me. "You thought I wasn't watching, so you let yourself take in some of the details: the long thick fingers on hands like garden rakes, the bulge in the jeans just below the overhanging belly and of course the hair, like an animals pelt, not just on the arms but pushing up from the shirt collar."

He looked me in the eye as his words drilled into me. I should have moved but I didn't. What he said was mostly true but what was holding me in place was the energy behind his words. I'd expected some 'I am not a freak-show to stare at' anger from him. What I was getting was something else. Something I couldn't name yet.

"And then you let yourself wonder what it would be like, to give yourself to an animal like that, the way a bitch in heat gives herself to a dog who is wild for the smell of her."

I felt my own anger rising then. I wanted to slap the smile off his face. But I didn't hit him. I didn't move. Because a small voice in my head was saying he knows.

One large hand reached out and for a moment I thought he was going to grope me, but he reached past me to pick up one of the glasses of whiskey I had lined up in front of me. I could have moved out of his way but that would have felt like ceding territory so I stayed still and endured his closeness. He smelled of tobacco and Guinness.

He smiled at me, said "Slanche" and tossed back the whiskey. I found myself noticing the way the thick black hair on his knuckles caught the light as he lifted the glass. It looked coarse and I wondered if it was clean or if that hair would hold the scent of everything he had touched that day.

"I know what you want," he said.

"Really? And how do you know that?"

"I've been watching you for the past few weeks; using that stool to display yourself while you check out the talent in the mirror behind the bar."

I didn't believe him. If he'd been watching me, I'd have known.

"I've noticed that the ones you take home are always just a little younger than you."

I had taken men home. Not many. Just enough to scratch my itch. But they were not younger than me. Or at least not much.

"Ah, I can see from your face that you'd not noticed the nature of your choice. Perhaps it's not their ages you're misjudging but your own. You're a fine looking woman but you'll not see thirty again I'd say. You're getting a little old for pretty boys."

My anger deserted me as I thought about what he'd said. It wasn't that I was worried about getting old. It was just that the pretty boys got on my nerves more than they had in the past. No matter how good they were at sex I always made them leave before morning and I was always glad when they'd gone.

"So that's what you think I want is it?" I said, keeping my voice controlled but letting my contempt show. "That's the insight you came over to share. You think I want young boys in my bed?"

"No. In fact I'm certain that's not what you want. Tonight, when you were checking me out in the mirror, I saw 'The Look.' Ah, I know that look right enough. It's the look a pretty woman gets in that moment when she's wondering about playing Esmeralda to my Quasimodo."

Quasimodo. The name fit him perfectly.

"So you think I want."

"Me. Yes."

I was so surprised I laughed. The idea was ridiculous.

"There's no need to be embarrassed," he said, misreading my mood entirely.

"You want to fuck ugly. You want to know what its like. See, I'm certain that a fine looking woman like yourself has never fucked ugly before. I reckon you've always had pretty boys who fuck you in front of mirrors so they can check out their own looks as they do it. It's a little sad, don't you think, all those Kens fucking Barbies because they're too good looking to fuck anyone else?"

That broke the spell. There was no point in talking to him. The best thing was to leave. I slid off the stool and reached back to the bar for my purse. He put a hand on the bar on either side of me. It made it look like I was getting ready to kiss him. I was too pressed up against the bar to knee him. I wondered if my purse was heavy enough to knock him out if I landed a blow on his head.

"I don't want to fuck you," I said, "But I do want you to get the fuck out of my face."

He grinned at me but he didn't move.

I grabbed hold of his wrist to push his arm out of my way. It was like trying to move a tree.

"Move," I said.

"I'm not a violent man," he said. "I won't hurt you. But here's something for you to think about: uglies try harder and for longer than pretty boys and they're a damned site hungrier. I think that that's the one thing that you and I have in common - that hunger."

Hunger. That was what I'd seen in his eyes. I knew a lot about hunger and the things it makes people do. The things it's made me do. But I was damned if I was going to let this ugly, aggressive, arrogant man know that.

"You're disgusting," I said.

"I'm ugly and fat alright," he said, his fleshy lips compressing themselves into a smile, "but I'm not what disgusts you. You're disgusted with all the beautiful, desire-free, passionless fucking that leaves you feeling hollow and hungrier than when you started."

"Leave me alone," I said, but I didn't push past him and I didn't raise my voice. I didn't want to think about what that meant.

"I'll leave you alone if you can look me in my good eye and tell me that your nipples aren't hard and that you're not wet enough for me to slide one of my thick fingers in smooth and easy."

He hadn't touched me, but the image of his finger slipping into me deep enough to wet the hair on his knuckles pushed its way into my mind with almost physical force. I resisted the urge to clamp my thighs together and tried to summon some of my famous hauteur.

"Get out of my way." I said. This time we both knew I meant it.

He stepped back enough for me to slide past him. I moved forward and he turned beside me, putting his arm around my waist. We looked like a couple getting ready to leave.

I moved forward quickly but his he kept pace with me and kept his arm around my waist. I wondered briefly if he might hurt me.

Just before we reached the door, he swung me around, pushing me back up against the coats hanging by the exit.

Now I was afraid. My response to fear is always aggression. I was going to scratch the one good eye out of his grotesque face.

He caught both my wrists in his hands before they got close to his face. He pinned me against the coats, pressed his fat bulk up against me, put his mouth against my ear and said. "I'm going to let you go in just a second. After I'm gone, I want you to think about what it would be like to rake your nails down my hairy back or press your forehead against my soft belly while I fuck your mouth. I want you to remember that I don't want your pert tits, your flat belly or your perfect face. I want your hunger. I want to unchain it and let it feed."

Then he let go and walked back into the bar.

I stayed with my back against the wall. I didn't even lower my arms from where he'd pinned them above my head. I couldn't form a single sentence in my head. I knew nothing except that my panties were soaked, my skin was flushed and I was sweating.

"Entschuldigung," a young man said. I had difficulty focusing on him so I was slow to move out from between him and his coat. He looked over his shoulder at me as he left the bar, his expression was scornful but he still checked me out before he closed the door behind him.

I stood up straight and searched for my own coat. As I slipped it on I looked back into the bar. Ugly had rejoined Fraulein Longshanks. He had his back to me. She was facing me, staring at me. Once we made eye contact, she leaned forward and sucked Ugly's earlobe into her mouth, all the while giving me a fuck-off-and-die stare. She reminded me of a lioness protecting her kill from a jackal.

I went back to my hotel and took a shower. It didn't help. The smell of him was off my skin but I could still taste him in my mind.

Sleep didn't come to me until I rolled over onto my belly, forced one hand between my legs, cupped my breast with other, and imagined riding Ugly's face, pressing my sex against his fleshy lips, working his over-long nose between my labia, making him suck my clit through the gap in his teeth, fucking his face until my arousal moved from drizzle to flood and he was drenched in my cum.

I went back to Paddy O'Reilly's the next day to apologize for not paying my tab. The bartender said, "Joseph said you'd be back today. He picked up your tally last night. Oh, and he left a note."

I waited until I was at work before I opened the note. It said, "If you're hungry on Saturday night, come find me."

I crumpled the note into a ball and threw it away, telling myself that I was outraged by Joseph's arrogance and that I had no intention of meeting with him. But alone in my bed, I found myself thinking about my hunger and what causes it and what it would take to sate it. So now I'm sitting on my stool, ignoring the pretty boys, waiting for impatiently to be fed.